Finalists announced for Australia’s Favourite Event

Australians select their top four favourite events as competition in the 2015 Australian Event Awards hots up.

Following thousands of votes, the Chelsea FC v Sydney FC International Football Friendly, the 50th Anniversary of the 1965 Freedom Ride, Perth International Arts Festival Presents The Giants and the Tottenham Hotspur FC International Football Tour have been announced as finalists for Australia’s Favourite Event after the public narrowed down the pool of 31 nominees selected by the expert judging panel.

Australia’s Favourite Event is the only category decided by public vote at the awards, which recognise the best events and achievements in the nation’s multi-billion dollar events industry.

With just a handful of events now left in the competition, the race to become Australia’s Favourite Event shifts into a higher gear as the four finalists battle to amass as many votes as possible before voting closes at 9pm on 17 November, the night of the Australia Event Awards. The nation’s most popular event will be announced at the end of the awards ceremony. Anyone in Australia with an email address can vote at http://www.eventawards.com.au.

The Chelsea FC v Sydney FC Football Friendly played at ANZ Stadium in front of a capacity crowd was described by Chelsea officials as the most successful international tour ever undertaken by the recent English Premier League Champions. Over 20,000 people travelled to Sydney from across Australia to attend the game.

The re-enactment of the 1965 Freedom Ride – a bus tour of University of Sydney students which shone a spotlight on the grave state of the nation’s race relations – brought original Freedom Riders together with current University students and staff to mark the 50th anniversary of the historic event.

Joined by Australian musicians Paul Kelly and Troy Cassar-Daley, the re-enactment toured regional NSW towns, staging free community events and public concerts to raise awareness of the ongoing inequalities faced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians.

The 2015 Perth International Arts Festival was an exploration of the epic and the intimate, from the incredible Giants to the most delicate Butterfly. The 23 day festival presented a diverse program of theatre, dance, opera, circus, music, visual art, film and literary events, attracting more than 1.7 million people to the largest cultural event in Western Australia’s history.

The Tottenham Hotspur FC International Football Tour featured a friendly against Sydney FC in front of a crowd of more than 70,000 at Sydney’s ANZ Stadium. During their four day stay in Australia, Tottenham players visited children at Sydney Children’s Hospital, had a meet and greet with fans in Pitt Street Mall and held an open training session which attracted around 4,000 fans.

The Australian Event Awards will take place in the evening of 17 November 2015 at Doltone House Jones Bay Wharf, Pyrmont, New South Wales.

With categories ranging from Best Tourism Event, Best Sporting Event and EVENTelec Best Cultural, Arts or Music Event to CIM Magazine Best Meeting or Conference and Doltone House Best Corporate Event, other finalists in the 2015 Australian Event Awards include Vivid Sydney, the Australian Open, Byron Bay Bluesfest, Santos Tour Down Under in South Australia, Glow Winter Arts Festival in Victoria, Mumbrella360 and Mumbrella Awards in New South Wales and Adelaide Writers’ Week.